Whether you're baiting or not, it's a serious issue that comes up. It's the same reason why 'white pride' parades are seen a discriminatory while the Irish pride parades are not.

When you are a smaller community within a larger one, and you face discrimination, it helps you overall to band together in these type of clubs, parades, etc, not necessarily or yourself, but for all the people who are being persecuted. You won't believe how many kids come up in college at those clubs, that are from Kansas or Kentucky and say how watching things like that on TV kept them from total isolation and even suicide. It's a big deal to people. I would encourage you to go to one of those meetings and sit and listen for a while.

As for 'gay pride' not making any sense because there is no such thing as 'straight pride' - that's factually wrong. 90% of normal societal structures, mores and traditions are about proving your manhood or otherwise celebrating ones sexuality (straight of course). Everything from a casual night out between guys/girls, to actual religious or cultural traditions that are embedded in society.

Haha, you don't have to take it seriously. I was just responding to an oft-used criticism of gay pride events. Obviously I'll argue my side just as I do in religious threads - up to you which side you fall on.

Am very anti-homophobic myself. I think the main emphasis should be placed on education, in our schools we are taught (even though some could call it propaganda but I feel it neccesary to teach kids not to care about race) that racism is wrong and are often reminded of the attrocities which have been caused by racism in history. I don't see why that shouldn't expand to teach tolerance of sexuality and the history of homosexual persecution. At the same time I'm saying all this supporting homosexuals I'm not gay so I don't really have much of a right to say this because I've no idea what it's like being persecuted for sexuality but I give my support to tolerance (and tbh not giving a **** about whether someone likes men or women)

Whether you're baiting or not, it's a serious issue that comes up. It's the same reason why 'white pride' parades are seen a discriminatory while the Irish pride parades are not.

When you are a smaller community within a larger one, and you face discrimination, it helps you overall to band together in these type of clubs, parades, etc, not necessarily or yourself, but for all the people who are being persecuted. You won't believe how many kids come up in college at those clubs, that are from Kansas or Kentucky and say how watching things like that on TV kept them from total isolation and even suicide. It's a big deal to people. I would encourage you to go to one of those meetings and sit and listen for a while.

As for 'gay pride' not making any sense because there is no such thing as 'straight pride' - that's factually wrong. 90% of normal societal structures, mores and traditions are about proving your manhood or otherwise celebrating ones sexuality (straight of course). Everything from a casual night out between guys/girls, to actual religious or cultural traditions that are embedded in society.

I'm with most people here, have no issues at all with LGBT people, got some friends who fit in there and family members, went to a gay wedding in Brighton last year actually for my moms cousin and his partner, was actually a really awesome experience and way, way better than normal church weddings which I can't ****ing stand, so boring.

But also agree with the sentiment that people who actively shove their sexuality down peoples throats are annoying as ****, I'm all for being proud of who you are and your sexuality and whatever, but when you start to define yourself entirely by your sexual preferences it can be severely annoying. On another forum I post at there are quite a few gay members, the majority of which are awesome, but there are a couple who seem to have made it a personal crusade to ensure that every single person who posts there knows what their sexuality is. One guy in particular is really dire, no exaggeration but literally every thread or post he makes has got something to do with him being gay, or gay this and gay that. If a hetero person went around talking about how much he loves women, wants to bone this kind of woman, making sure everyone knows just how hetero and whatever he is, I think people would get tired of that person extremely quickly, but because prejudice against gay people is only really starting to letup over the last couple of decades that they are worried about offending gay people that do this.

I really don't care what someones sexuality is, whichever kind of person you are attracted to only accounts for a small part of your overall personality, and people that have to run their lives revolving around that one facet of themselves I find to be incredibly tiresome. It's basically the same thing as running around screaming in everyones face that you love chicken, wearing clothes that only have pictures of Colonel Sanders on them and only getting involved in activities that centre around chicken, it's stupid.